Clothes Horse

The Giant Boy is now at the stage when, at Christmastide, the only things he would want to find in a stocking are  a grand in used notes and Kelly Brook. So I don't have to creep about at 2am filling tights up with felt-tip pens and Lego any more, but I do have to somehow find "Christmas clothes" for him. This is an ancient Liverpool tradition dating back to,oooh, 2009, I think. It dictates that parents,or in my case, parent, pull enormous amounts of cash out of the air to buy designer gear with large ponies on it. This is in addition to Christmas presents, you understand. I don't know from girls, but the boys are all on-line, checking and re-assessing the relative merits of polo shirts and massively expensive canvas shoes. Or "plimsolls", as they were in my youth. I am then updated via Blackberry as to whom has what bought for whom, and shown photographs. Honestly, they are worse than the most diva-esque supermodel. I can applaud dandyism, and positively encourage sartorial elegance. I am also keenly aware that this conflict has been bubbling away in various forms since the Fall of Rome. Harassed Ancient Roman parents (of course they didn't KNOW they were Ancient Romans at that point, although I bet their children referred to them as such) were probably saying "So, why do you need a COMPLETELY different toga and sandals to go to the Coliseum, it will only come back covered in beast blood and sawdust? Well, I don't care if Lavinius's father has bought him one embroidered with gold, he made a packet sacking Sicily, didn't he? "
Of course it is only recently that special clothes for young people existed, anyway. If you were a Tudor teen, or indeed, baby; you were firmly stuffed into a ruff and a bodice,sewn into two outfits a year and your parent's servants threw herbs at you to conceal the niff. There are lots of portraits showing youthful Dukes sulking in white tights,or smirking in brocade pantaloons. Their acne had been painted out by the court portraitist. Pre-Restoration, there were probably heated arguments re ringlets and lace collars, with Cavalier adolescents trying to rebel against foppery and velvet by going out and getting  a New Model Army haircut.  But everyone was really too busy improving their life expectancy for teenagers to be invented, youngsters went from infant to fully-dressed adult without so much as a whimper. Whatever angst they had, they kept it to themselves or wrote poems about it in Latin,if they were toffs. Then came the Fifties, and the teenager was invented, by a Mr Chuck Haley or somesuch. Since then none of us have had any peace.
I didn't like being one,it didn't suit my temperament at all. My teenage photographs show a Neapolitan 35-year-old  prostitute with a huge bust, when all my friends were Sara Moon-faced waifs. The GB seems to be getting into it more; but I fear that his tastes are so fearfully expensive that ONE of us will have to go on the streets. I am hoping,without much evidence, that he will tire of looking like an American millionaire preppy, reeking of Hugo Boss, and will become alternative in some way. He can't be a Goth, he is far too robust, and has a raucous, filthy laugh. He doesn't give a tuppenny damn about the planet, or saving the whelk. I don't think my original aspiration , which was for him to be a gay fashion designer,is going to happen. Despite my brother's predictions to the contrary, entirely  based on the incident in which he glimpsed the Giant Baby in a  lilac cardigan  bought for him by one of my camper friends.
Well, he is off to do work experience in London, in January. He has already requested a suit in which to masquerade as an adult.
I had better go and earn some money, like Mildred Pierce did when faced with her daughter's endless demands for fine clothing. Except there aren't any diners round here, and even if they were I doubt that a shortsighted arsonist is what they require. If you hear of an opening, do let me know.

Bottoms Up.

'Tis the Night Before Christmas, and not for the first time I am hiding from the hordes. It is too early to go Christmas shopping, really. One has to keep one's nerve. There are still sensible adults running round Asda purchasing last-minute "Christmas Spices" Room Spray;having remembered a visiting niffy pet, or relative.  The thing is to take it to the brink; tanking up on Bailey's from 11am, and then hitting the shops.  The company will be much more congenial.  There are few things worth doing that cannot be accomplished in three hours.
I intend to go to the library instead. I hold it to be the height of decadence, to troll around the shelves, trying to find an autobiography written by someone over twenty-five who is not a sportsperson, or a novel which isn't about anyone finding themselves in mid-life . I found my feet when I was eight months old, and the rest of me quite soon after that. Nothing has amused me so much as the feet, admittedly, but I have given a few other parts a fighting chance.
I want a book of old-fangled ghost stories. Modern ghosts tend to be unsatisfactory, both theologically and aesthetically. I also find it difficult to be convinced by supernatural beings who haunt places with central heating, or turn out to be demons. I would also like one of those books of humorous verse that were ubiquitous in the post-war years,and unfailingly edited by Ogden Nash. My head is full of Edwardian parodies of now totally-unread but then tremendously au courant versifiers. When I am ,as I must be, taken hostage, I shall have plenty of rubbish and trivia with which to entertain myself and my co-hostages.When we are chained to a radiator somewhere hideous; I shall recite parodies of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to my grateful captive audience.
In the meantime;I really must ask them at the Library not to persist in addressing me as a "Borrower". It makes me feel small. The banks used to do it, in the days when they allowed me to borrow. I was reminiscing with a friend about this, and she said "Oh, I DREAM I am shopping, over and over again".  I bet few men have this dream, but asking around, it seems that many of my girlfriends enjoy similiar reveries.They describe dreams in which they are wandering round department stores with limitless credit, feeling the weight and heft of shiny carrier bags, hurtling into changing rooms with armfuls of glittery things...and wake sobbing, exiled for ever from that idyllic period when it seemed that everyone could have everything and it was all practically free. I think I am the last one left who has dreams about sex, teeth, and flying;  like a normal person.
I was a terrible person, in those days. I earned proper money, and had a handbag and everything. In this handbag, there lived a set of little credit cards, store cards, and sometimes, some cash.  Plus fags, lipstick and phone of course, I wasn't a savage. I would frequently book a train ticket and a hotel room in some city with which I was unfamiliar, and trot off for a spree in their shops. I loved all of it ;the choosing correct underwear in which to appear in a changing room, being given free samples of vile perfume by terracotta cosmetic warriors in Selfridge's Beauty Hall, collapsing for an espresso in a chic cafe and rationalising one's carrier bags..poring over fabrics and colours like a goblin.
I had a well-paid mildly interesting job, and a dull domestic life. My social life was great fun, though, and a great deal of it was spent with like-minded hedonists. I still have most of them in my address book, and I still have most of the clothes I bought, which I now discover are "Vintage", and so am I. If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. It's odd how some bits of you wear out before others do. Teeth, for instance, seem to have only been intended to last people for about twenty years.  After that, it's all veneers and wire. The skeletal structure, particularly backs and knees, seems to be a little flimsy too. But things like bottoms seem well-nigh indestructible,and probably go on after death, imperishably.  Hardy things, aren't they?  Some people don't have them at all..it's uncanny. Just a flat section, and then thighs. British people used to be becomingly bashful about their behinds; "This Englishwoman is so refined;She has no bosom and no behind", as Stevie Smith once wrote. Alas, these days they are coming at you from toutes directions.  This is a Continental practice, I feel , encouraged by the Internet. In my day, your bottom was for sitting about on, keeping in a spotless state, wrapping up in navy blue big pants, and every now and again, a spanking. Nothing erotic about bottoms in the 50's. Now they have totally got above themselves, and have started behaving like breasts. And being Americanised as "asses" all over the shop . Not to mention the fact that no sexual encounter these days can take place without a hearty helping of buggery. I  protest, and so does my British bottom. In fact, we shall stage a sit-in.      
Ooh look, it's Christmas! And here I am, banging on about bums.   I think I shall finish this bottle of Bailey's, whilst watching Bill Bailey. Pleasing though this is, I don't suppose I shall be able to keep it up.I can do you Guinness, and Alec Guinness, though. Why not spend Christmas drinking the thing with the same name as the person you are watching on TV? After a while, none of it will matter. Even not shopping any more,or having to have your bottom bleached, or anything..

Country Diary of an Edwardian Meerkat

Some people make a very pleasant living by describing in various magazines and journals the delighful antics of wildlife. "Through my kitchen window" they say "I marvel at the red red robin, who is indeed bob-bob-bobbin' along, as per instructions. Oh, and here comes Mr Badger, looking sleek and pleased not to have been gassed.."
Well let me tell you what I can see in the garden this morning, and why I do not write for "Country Life; Nature Notes". Actually it is my Mother's garden. This morning, someone sent her a box of assorted meerkats. On the box it says "Lifestyle Solutions". I suppose if the original problem was that one lacked four bobbing figurines of meerkats on springs, then they have indeed solved it. The Giant Boy was called into action to insert the wobbly devils into the ground. Of course, he had no trousers or shoes, he never does. I spend my waking hours buying him trousers and shoes, every week in a bigger size, it seems. And yet, when called upon to pitch in with an activity traditionally requiring trousers (paying the milkman, chasing the postman up the road, preventing the Dog from throwing itself under the wheels of the icecream van), he is ALWAYS trouserless and shoeless. It didn't save him this morning. My Mother wanted those meerkats in position, and she wanted them there now. So out of the window I can see a large daft teenage boy, wearing his school shoes and a pair of droopy underpants, plus Rob Zombie teeshirt, moving four meerkats around. "Here, Nana? " "No, that's too far away, I can't see his little face." Huge advantage, if you ask me. These four  eldritch things have been painted to have four different faces,each capturing  a particular emotional state in the no doubt eventful life of the meerkat. To wit;  Suicidal, Murderous, Insanely Cheerful and, my favourite, Massively Shifty.  I  like to imagine the face-painter, bored beyond belief in the excruciating heat of the "Lifestyle Solutions" Filipino factory,conjuring up the fizz-ogs of the last four serial-killers to have made the front pages of the Daily Reaper, and painstakingly recreating them in meerkat form.
So eventually Mum  decides that they be positioned around the statue of St Francis of Assisi, who in turn lurks around the base of the birdbath/buffet table. When new, he resembled Peter O'Toole in a cassock. But weather and time have taken their toll, and now he looks like Freddy Starr. He was touched up with brown Airfix paint a few weeks ago;his gown had become leprous-looking as the paint had peeled away. Previously, St Francis had stretched a benevolent arm out towards a squirrel,( which had it stood up would have towered over him), a camel, a gloomy otter, and a brace of swans with pansies inserted into their undercarriages,  appearing, understandably, very bad-tempered. He seemed to take control over this peculiarly ill-assorted menagerie with suitable gravitas. But now he has four new additions to his flock, and they look like trouble to me.

Inside the house, Ma has continued to signal her fondness for animals. As I look around the living room, I am surrounded by a dozen or so robins, perched on picture frames, leering down from the curtain rail, balefully beady-eyed. It is like one of the more sinister bits of "The Birds". I sleep on the sofa when I stay here; and my pre-bed ritual now includes robin-removal, as well as smothering three ticking clocks  with crocheted cushions and spraying Spider-Discourager in the murkier corners. She has a Victorian oak cabinet which is from  " MY Grandmother's Old House in Ireland". It holds many curiosities and ornaments, but is  known in the family as "Death Row" due to the large number of framed likenesses of the Dear Departed it holds  behind diamond-panelled glass doors.
In another corner is the pared-down remnants of what was once a collection of over 400 owls.The largest is made of rubber. Who on earth gave it to her? It looms over the china likeness of the late Queen Mother, like Godzilla with a beak. Another cabinet is dedicated to "Animals No Longer With Us". I do recall most of them,unfortunately. Particularly the Scottish Terrier that was so spectacularly inbred that it was its own Grandfather. It used to conceal itself under the dinner table. When all were engrossed in light chit-chat,or negotiating  a tricky kipper it would begin to snarl, bite itself, and speak in tongues: prior to running up the curtains and collapsing in a frothing fit.
As I have mentioned, the Giant Boy wishes for a dog. He is going the same way as his Nana, I fear. Fortunately, I am able to stall for a little longer, as Downturn Abbey is unfit for pets. Keeping so much as a vole there would amount to cruel and unusual punishment, so short of space do we find ourselves. The wildlife to be observed from my kitchen window(which is also my living room window) tends to be human, and going through the bins. The sound of growling and howling commonly rends the night round here,  but tends to eminate from homecoming student drinkers rather than from foxes. There is a three-seater leather sofa in my back garden; I think it was placed there in the hope that a couple would nest there , with a bottle of wine and a DVD, perhaps. I am not sure that it is bio-degradable, but we shall see. As everyone in Britain must own at least three sofas by now;if the amount of money spent advertising them works at all, I suppose it is inevitable that the unwanted ones will appear in unusual contexts. And it looked awfully pretty,covered in snow.By spring,it may sprout little pouffes. I shall do a wildlife film, and David Attenborough will beat a path to my door.If he can get past the pizza boxes and the wild herds of trollies.

Zombies R' Us

As everything is careering Hell-wards in a selection of hand baskets,I have decided to ignore oncoming economic ruin, and worry about the forthcoming and inevitable Zombie Apocalypse instead. This is partly because I don't understand the Euro sufficiently to know what it is doing, and need distraction, partly as a result of a ferocious and recent addiction to a television drama on this very topic. "The Walking Dead" is a  well-made and involving American soap opera with a topping of extra zombies. Zombies used to be rather sedate;they were seen from time to time in black-and-white movies about Voodoo in Haiti, stumbling in a blank-faced manner looking for all the world like a tardy cinema-goer seeking his seat in a darkened auditorium, but marginally less sinister. Then a Mr George Romero got his hands on them, and they acquired some unpleasant habits. According to horror convention and classification, they are actually ghouls. Ghouls hang about in churchyards, eating the dead and bothering the living, should any pop round. Traditional zombies did not gallop around demanding brains and decaying in a rapid and distressing manner. They only started that moving quickly caper quite recently, reaching alarming speeds in modern post-apocalyptic films like "28 Days /Weeks Later". The "Walkers" in "The Walking Dead" revert to stalking about slowly, and they are recognisably human. This assists in one of the major themes of TWD, which examines through considerable debate and discussion, the nature of what it is to be a living person. The characterisation and relationships within the survivors are given as much attention as the prosthetics and special effects. Apart from the female characters.Apparently it is much easier to write  Undead characters than it is to bring a female protagonist to life. The women are annoying, whiny, and are either weeping or over-analysing everyone's motives. Oh, and one of them is pregnant with a baby who is destined to be a light snack. If there is one situation in which a baby should not be on board, it is a Zombie Apocalypse. You often have to keep very quiet and hide under cars. There is a lot of running. Babies are  troublesome  at the best of times, one of which this is clearly not. This mite  will be doubly so , as our heroine  has little clue as to which of the two main chaps is the father. There's also a  Victorian  fairytale quality to the plotting;  people think that their loved ones have perished, but they are miraculously or horribly  restored, children are lost in the woods, and moral fibre is tested until it twangs several times a day. There is an interesting schism going on just now between a farmer who believes that the flesh-munching growlers are just sick, and consequently is keeping twenty or so in a barn and feeding them on chickens, in the hope that a cure will be found; and the more pragmatic element who are now seeking shelter on his farm. They are of the mind,as a result of several dismaying experiences,that the Walkers are now far removed from humanity,and the best course of action is a swift and thorough dispatch. This can be achieved only with the time-honoured decapitation or head shot method,and is not as easy as all that. They all spend a great deal of time practising,though.Sometimes on each other.It is not wise to yawn or to  slacken one's pace in their company.

So I am going to have to brush up on a few survival skills currently not in my repertoire.  I have been a keen zombie studier  since childhood, and have picked up a few wrinkles. I know, for instance, not to take advantage of the inevitable breakdown of law and order and head off to the nearest shopping mall.This would normally be most awfully tempting, as I have not been shopping properly since the Credit Crunch. However I also know that I  share a love of hanging around shops with the Undead ( in addition to slow un-coordinated movements). Wafting round Marks in a stunned condition is what I do.  However, after Z-Day, there would be a better than average chance of being bitten before you reach the self-service till. "Unexpected item in bagging area" indeed.
American Zombies are easily recognisable, due to their pallor and staggering gait. Over here, people would just assume that they were very drunk. In fact "Shaun of the Dead", a sprightly British comedy, riffs amusingly on this idea.  In it, Crouch End is being overrun by the walking dead, but since the plague starts on a Sunday morning, no-one notices for a few hours. When I lived there, a ghastly-faced man shuffling towards you in his pyjamas was an unremarkable feature of a weekend trip to Budgen's.
It was all about vampires for the last few years, but that vein is now exhausted, what with "True Blood", "The Vampire Diaries",and the tedious teenagers of the "Twilight" franchise. Since "American Werewolf In London" , there hasn't been a good film about werewolves, and besides, in the UK we are a bit too soppy about dogs to find a slavering hairy beast particularly frightening.
We are evidently intrigued, as a species, by the idea of our loved and familiar fellows turning into something from which all vestiges of humanity have disappeared, and we are constantly examining the idea of afterlife;the persistence of the essential essence on some form or other, and the nature of revivification.  The Zombie notion is just another in an ancient tradition of stories we tell ourselves about death and personhood. "The Walking Dead" differs from other explorations of these themes in that it looks at them overtly and discussed them openly. And the zombie effects are tremendous;the people playing the Walkers are obviously having a marvellous time, and I have to keep watching it because there are some characters I really do want to see survive, and several others whom I wish to bite the dust, or vice versa.  Sadly, the series is "on a break", an irksome feature of American TV scheduling, apparently, so I shall have to wait until Valentine's Day to see sub-human critters preying upon each other in slow-motion. Unless I go out over New Year, that is.